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Be the Content

I often tell people who ask, "Be the content you want." It is a piece of advice that I wish someone had given me back when I first started playing Eve Online over ten years ago. But then, if they had, I may not have understood it. It took a lot of wars, moving, trying things, learning, failing, and generally trying to find my own way - before it all started making sense.

So what does that even mean? Be the content you want?

People tend to whine and complain that certain parts of Eve are terrible, or dead, or not as active as they'd like them to be. For some Eve players, that attitude is normal. Low Sec is dead they'll say. Solo is dead they'll say. Just look at Reddit any day of the year and you'll find one or two or more posts about some section of Eve that ain't working right. Thing is though, Eve Online is a sandbox. It is literally a blank slate.

If I log in and think, you know what we need is a good old angry brawl. I go make enemies with someone and get them to hate us. If I log in and think, I should go find some good solo fights, I go fly around solo and find some. We've taken Sov on a whim, because it sounded fun. We've invaded, we've prodded, we've taken down Citadels, pretty much anything you can imagine and we make it happen. We generate our own content. We are the content.

Too many people seem to believe that Eve is a passive experience that happens to you. It isn't. Sure, you can undock and wait. Eventually something will happen to you. But that isn't content, or all that interesting, or sustainable. Eve isn't a passive experience. It isn't a roadmap, or a platform, or a goal-oriented console game. Eve is an active participation experience largely driven solely by your own will. Do you want to fight in a large fleet battle in Null space? Then go make one happen. I've done it many times.

I've created wars. Or helped to create wars. Or prodded people into making them. Because at one time that was what I wanted. Not always alone, don't get the wrong idea here. Sometimes it takes getting a bunch of people on your side, or influencing a group of people, or going into enemy territory and causing trouble, or talking on Discord, or spending a lot of iskies, or whatever. But one person can do it. Put your mind to it and suddenly there is World War Bee. Or another invasion into Providence. Or another war in the North.

But Rixx, you'll say, I'm only one person. Good. Because everything that has ever happened in Eve's long, storied history was started by one person. Not the same one person. But hundreds and hundreds of them. That's how this works.

And it just doesn't work for PvP or Wars or conflicts either. It works for everything. Whatever you want to happen in Eve, go make it happen. Seriously. Is it always easy? Will it always work? Nope. It can be hard and often it will fail. But you'll learn. And you'll know better the next time. Or you'll discover something even better.

Want a media empire? Go make one. I can remember back when Nashh and the guys at +10 started Eve_NT with little more than an idea and a player event in Nottingham of all places. A few years later and they are hosting the Alliance Tournament production. I could name a hundred other examples. I remember when Katie Sae started the journey to visit every system in Eve. And here we are a decade later - every system visited with no ship losses. Amazing.

But it doesn't have to be big content. It can be extremely personal. Just undock and make it happen. Start a conversation. Plan an event. Plant your flag in a system. Haul cargo. Buy low and sell high. Explore. Try something new. Join a Discord server. Whatever it takes, it only takes one step. And who knows where the journey will end?

Once long ago I had never heard of Eve Online. My first day I tried flying to the gate directly because I didn't know about right-clicking or warping. And every adventure, every war, every conflict, angry poster, horrible comment, and everything else that has happened in the last ten years plus came after that day.

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